Day: February 4, 2007

I’ve been watching the wiki all weekend waiting to blog about the 150th registrant to podcamp. Lo and behold it turned out to be my brother-in-law. I’ve been talking podcamp up to him for months and he decided to join us.
Andrew Beatty is a Toronto writer, teacher, blogger, father, and he’s married to my sister. The complete text of his novel, White Trash Land, is available for reading at http://whitetrashland.wordpress.com. Right after his name turned up on the wiki, I IM’d him and we had a chat about podcamp. Here it is.

Sean: So there I was waiting to blog about the 150th podcamp registrant, and it’s my brother in law :).

Andrew: Weird, huh?

Andrew: Do you want to interview me or anything?

Sean: In fact, I’ll cut and paste straight from this IM.

Sean: So, why are you coming to podcamp?

Andrew: Well, I wrote a novel some time ago, and did very little with it. While I do not feel it is publishable, I would like it to be seen or heard by the public.

Andrew: Yes, that would be the novel. My bronther-in-law (Sean) generously recorded an audio book of the entire novel for my Christmas present. We are in the process of setting up a podcast of the book. We hope to release the full novel as a podcast, and I am hoping to increase my skills at PodCamp.

Sean: Have you been exploring any other podcasting opportunities (ie- work related)?

Andrew: As well, as a computer teacher with the TDSB, I am hoping to include podcasting as a media unit.

Andrew: So far we have created Photoshop images and web pages for Creative Commons licensed musicians, the next step is the podcast.

Sean: Very cool. How do you find the musicians for your students to work with?

Andrew: We did a search after exploring the creative commons website

Sean: Your students are grade 7 and 8. What do they think about creating media for “real bands”?

Andrew: They find it to be very exciting, being able to use concrete examples that they were able to choose themsleves, rather than having to work with obvious constructions forced upon them by their teacher. Running a democratic classroom, I aspire to give the students as much individual choice and freedom as possible.

Sean: I have had a class blog for about 6 years, and the children are always thrilled to see something that they made on the Internet.

Andrew: Right now the students are sometimes disappointed that we are just working on the computers at school, and connot access thier work online yet. That will be the finale of the HTML/CSS project.

Sean: I know that a number of educators, from primary teachers up to university professors will be attending podcamp. Many educators view podcasting as a wonderful platform for teaching.

Andrew: I absolutely agree. It covers many curriculum expectations; such as writing the podcast, creating a media work, giving an oral presentation. These are all things that as teachers we can use to generate marks, while also giving students an opportunity to express themselves in a new and engaging way. It’s not asking them to write another essay, or rehearse another speech, it’s allowing them to use some exciting new concepts to further their interaction with the world.

Andrew: I have attended a workshop put on by some teachers at the TDSB, and shared some ideas there. I am hoping that this will be a larger venue to explore solutions that people have found. I look forward to seeing everyone at Podcamp 2007!

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More on Podcamp Toronto!

February 21-22, 2009
Rogers Communications Centre at Ryerson University
More information and Free Registration at the
Podcamp Toronto Wiki